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Topic: First Cut Out For The Year (Log Cut Out) (Read 1843 times)

Things are warming up earlier than usual and something like this normally would not happen for another month or so around here, but bees have been hauling pollen in quantity since the fourth week in Feb. Things are moving and barring a heavy freeze things are shaping up for a good first half flow.

Anyways, I did a log cut out. Went amazingly smooth and quick. Nabbed the queen and got them home. THe only thing that made this all possible was a property owner willing to not throw gas on 'em and a slow fall as the rotting oak tree sort of just pulled out of the ground after Hurricane Ike last year (we got hammered, even up here in South Western Ohio!). SO the colony survived the fall and simply started drawing comb and fixing the old comb.

A managed to place three deep frames worth of brood comb into catch frames I started making.

A little over a week later they have drawn out and repaired the brood frames and drawn out about half the two plastic pierco. They appear honey bound and I am going to give them space. The day after the cut-out it dropped down to 20F so I wanted to make sure they had a small chamber to heat and flourish. Now that its into the 70s again I gave them more room.

Here is a link to the site detailing the method I used and try ot break it down step by step. I am not the best teacher but I hope it serves as a solid piece of instruction to anyone wanting to do something similar. It was my first time doing a log. I've done 5 cut-outs total, 2 successful, so take that into consideration. I am fairly new to this.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service

Nah, metal wedges. The "axe" you see is a sort of maw with a sledgehammer face on one end and curved edge maw on the other. One tool for two roles. In this case we looked for splits (old tree, came down slow in a storm) and stress fractures. Tap the wedge in and start swinging. It then splits the length of the section, following the grain. I never used it as you would an axe...just a sledge.

Sometimes the split will start but need help and then you place more wedges along the length and tap these in. If its hardwood and usually it seems to be, it should just pop.

Use the large metal wedges too, not those plastic chainsaw plastic ones.

I did. Keep in mind that this section of the tree that contained the colony was about 75 feet long. We had two chainsaws out and were clearing branches and cutting the trunk down bit by bit to find the top f the colony then guesstimated the position of the bottom of it.

What was left was this five foot section you see in the pictures above.

If you mean why not a chainsaw to open up the log...well...I think of it as the right tool for the right job.

The chainsaw sprays bar oil and makes a mess compared to simply splitting the log. The log is hollow and dead. Splitting it allows for FAR more control. It takes a little more phyisical effort but that is good in my book. Let's me work off some of my winter "stores".

Its REALLY nice to be able to find the queen and not have to worry about cutting into the comb with the saw and remove the sections of unused wax efficently without it filled with debris from a chainsaw.

Think of it like surgery and having a choice between a scapel and a pruning saw. :D